


Tutorial

by taispeantas_laethuil



Series: Forbidden Though The Words May Be [3]
Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, i'm not the only one who looked at saplings and thought that right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 04:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taispeantas_laethuil/pseuds/taispeantas_laethuil
Summary: Volfred Sandalwood's first day as a Reader sure happened.





	Tutorial

**Author's Note:**

> If you're not sure if you should read this because you haven't read the rest of the series: don't worry, you'll be fine. The only things referenced from other parts of the series that aren't fully explained is that Volfred met a demon while he was still in the Commonwealth, who had sought him out to help contact her friends still in the Downside. Everything else should be self-explanatory.
> 
> Also: I would like to apologize in advance to you all for making you picture the thing.

It’s laundry day for the Nightwings, which just means that you’re hanging around in your raiments as your actual clothing dries. It’s quiet in the Blackwagon. Ti’zo is gone for right now, doing some kind of imp thing you suspect is actually a mating thing. The Minstrel sits in his corner, silent and still. Brighton is gone, which helps everything but the quiet. Savarti and Reggis are even longer gone, and you miss them even more. Oralech is filling up the blackwagon’s cistern with the water from the oasis you’re parked by while the turtle it’s on is staying still, and has left you to supervise the possibly newest member of your triumvirate. 

The Sap sits at the little table you have in the main room, every so often listing to one side before correcting himself. He’s taller than you, which is weird, and you don’t really know more about him than that, which is weirder. 

Actually, that’s a lie. Here’s what you know about the Sap, potentially newest of Nightwings:

  1. Whatever he did, it was bad enough that they’d sent him down in high-quality actual fucking chains, and a muzzle. 
  2. Whatever it was, you can’t tell, because the brand on his head is still caked over with resin and Oralech doesn’t want either the Sap or you picking at it. 
  3. What it was, the Sap also can’t tell you, because his vocal system was in really bad Doc-had-to-amputate-part-of-it shape when you found him, and the guy’s not going to be talking for a while. 
  4. He got really fucking excited when Oralech introduced himself.



So. That’s it. Not a whole lot to go on. 

“So…” you say, as the sound a damp clothing dripping onto the blackwagon floor becomes unbearable. “Is there something you want to know about?”

The Sap gives you a flat look, and waves one arm around to encompass the whole of blackwagon.

“Okay, fair,” you say. “Everything’s new, I get that. Is there somewhere you want to start?”

The Sap points at you. 

“I’m Erisa, sometimes called Erida Patricide,” You’ve introduced yourself already, but you’re not sure how much he remembers- up until maybe yesterday he’d been  _ really _ out of it. “One day my father hit me one time too many, and I snapped, and the next thing you know the sheriff had deputized half the whole town to help arrest me because I’d been working on our commissions covered in his blood while his body was cooling in the front yard for hours without realizing it. I’ve been here about five years, maybe, definitely travelling with Doc for four.” You’ve learned the hard way that this is the sort of thing that you really need to get out of the way early on. They’ll see the brand sooner or later, no matter how well you keep it covered, and later definitely makes it worse.  

The Sap seems to think this over for a time, before pointing to you again. He holds up all ten fingers, waggles them, closes his hands into fists and then waggles them again, before pointing to you with his head tilting in what was clearly meant to be a question. 

That one takes you a moment.

“Are you trying to ask how old I am.”

The Sap nods. 

“You know what, if you decide to stay on, you and Doc are going to get along great, that was his first question too,” you say. 

The Sap points at you again. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m twenty.” You told Oralech that you were sixteen when you joined the Nightwings, and it’s not far enough from the truth for you stop lying now, at least. “So, yeah, I was technically a kid when I killed him. It sucked, there were definitely people who should have stepped in before it went that far, I’m still mad about it but also he’s dead and it’s all over now.”

The Sap nods, and then, after a moment, plucks at the cuff of the raiments Oralech had helped him into. (His exile’s cloak is a lost cause for anything but rags and maybe bandages, but the robes he’d been wearing underneath it are much more durable, and  _ might _ be repaired. They’ve washed them, at least.)

“The uniforms? They’re called raiments. They signify our triumvirate, and act as protection during…”

You trail off. The Sap watches you expectantly. You watch him in turn. 

“You know, while you’re awake and kind of coherent, I guess I should just ask,” you decide. “Can you read?”

The Sap’s eyes light up. He nods emphatically. 

“Wait, seriously?”

He nods again, and then points to his head, where the brand is. 

“The branded you for  _ reading _ ?” Being branded is something that generally only happens to really violent criminals like you. Reading is supposed to be dangerous, but not that particular kind of dangerous. It’s like heresy, or defamation. It’s a crime of saying things that make it dangerous to be around you, not doing things that actually hurt anything real.

The Sap points again, clearly asking ‘What, you couldn’t tell?’

“I can’t see a fucking thing under all that gunk, for all we could tell maybe you killed your father too, and we were going to be patricide buddies,” you grumble. “How the fuck do you even read enough for that?”

The Sap blinks at you. You ignore him: there’s the sound of water being poured out, so you poke your head out of the blackwagon to give Oralech the good news. “Hey, he can read!”

The sound of pouring stops, and Oralech comes around the side of the blackwagon, bucket in hand. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, he just told me!”

“He can’t speak!”

“Well he just  _ nodded _ at me!”

You come back inside and sit back down opposite the Sap, who looks a little confused, which, again, fair. 

“Okay, so. This is great, and I’m going to let Oralech explain the details to you because he’s been doing this the longest,” you say. “But the short version is that we’re the Nightwings, which is-”

One of the Sap’s hands shoots out and squeezes yours. He looks, if possible, even more excited than he had when he’d learned that Oralech was Oralech. 

“Uh. Have you heard of us?”

He nods. 

“How?” You demand. “This is your first time being exiled, right?”

The Sap nods again.

“You were dying before we found you. We did find you, like right after you were exiled, right?”

The Sap nods again, clearly thinking. He points up at the ceiling. You look up instinctively, and see nothing. You look back at the Sap, who continues to point, raising his arm up higher. For a moment he reminds you of the statues on Mt Alodiel. 

“You heard about us in Commonwealth,” you realize. 

“What?” Oralech asks as he steps in. 

“He heard about us- the Nightwings- in the Commonwealth,” you say.  

“How?” Oralech asks. 

The Sap lifts his heads up and puts them on either side of his head in a clear imitation of horns. 

“From a demon,” Oralech says softly. 

Brighton wasn’t a full-on demon, not yet. But for those last few months, he’d had horns- short ones, poking out from the sides of his skull. If you’d never seen a demon before, you might not know to look for hooves and claws- the horns would be enough.

“This demon wouldn’t happen to have been named Brighton, would it?” you ask. 

The Sap shakes his head. 

“Are you sure?” you press. Anything that Brighton’s arranged would be bad news for you. “I mean, he could have given a false name, or-”

The Sap shakes his head so hard that he almost falls over. He steadies himself before Oralech can do more than take a step forward, and places his hands on either side of his head again, before gesturing to you. 

“Uh?”

Oralech, thankfully, gets him. “The demon was a woman.”

The Sap nods. 

“Well thank fuck,” you say. “No idea who she was, though- any ideas, Doc?”

The Sap points to Oralech, then waggles a finger, and then (possibly) mimes moving a box to the left.

“Is the finger waggling thing supposed to be the number of years, still?” you ask. 

The Sap nods, thinks it over, and then repeats the motions in a different sequence: finger, box, and Oralech. 

“One year...before me?” Oralech guesses. 

The Sap nods again. 

“Before my exile.”

Another nod.

“When you can talk again, we’re really going to have to have a conversation about how you know me,” Oralech says. “There weren’t a lot of Saps involved with the War. I would have remembered you.”

The Sap looks conflicted for a moment. Then he makes some kind of loose-fisted movement with his hand over the tabletop. 

Oralech looks at you to see if you can tell what he’s trying to say. 

“That looked like he was offering you a handjob to me,” you tell him. 

The Sap makes a noise like a branch cracking, and then clutches at his throat. 

“Don’t try to talk, you’ll only prolong your recovery,” Oralech snaps at him, before turning to you. “And if a handjob looks like that something’s gone terribly wrong.”

The Sap makes another, quieter noise, and then heaves himself upright. 

“Where are you going?” Oralech asks. 

The Sap holds up a finger, not waggling it: clearly he wants them to wait while he hugs the wall of the blackwagon on his way to- 

“Wait, don’t-”

But the Sap has already taken down the Book of Rites from its shelf, and opened it. Even as you speak the world dissolves…

...and the resolves into the arena you hold practice rites in. 

You rip off the mask you are suddenly wearing. “Uh.” You had been worried because the Book definitely has some kind of something protective and not necessarily nice built into it. This was not what you were expecting. “Did you know we could get into here from the Book?”

“Brighton mentioned that the Beyonders are tied to the Book, somehow?” Oralech says. When he removes his mask, he does not look any more certain of things than you feel. 

Beyond him is the Sap, his mask also held in his hand. Or, at least, you’re pretty sure that the Sap. He doesn’t look quite the same as he does in the real world. 

“I-” the Sap says, and then smiles. “Oh! I can talk again.” Definitely the new guy, then. One of the strands of leafy vines that covers his head falls in front of his face, and his smile vanishes. “Ah. I see. This isn’t real.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s real,” you say. 

The Sap pushes the- hair? Is it still hair when it’s made of plant?- from his face. “I very distinctly remember having this cut off. It was extraordinarily painful.” Okay, so definitely not hair. 

“This isn’t a physical place,” Oralech explains. “It’s… more mental. Spiritual, maybe, I’m not sure. The point is that how you currently look in here has more to do with how you picture yourself than how you actually are. One previous Nightwing was a Harp, she always had her pinion feathers in here.”

“And Brighton never had horns, even after they started popping out,” you add. 

“Exactly!”

The Sap looks between the two of you. “So this is real, it’s just not physically happening,” he says slowly. 

“If that makes sense,” Oralech confirms with a nod. 

“Nothing about this makes sense, but then again, nothing has made sense since I awoke,” the Sap says. “I suppose I can’t rightfully expect for things to start making sense now.”

For a moment the three of you just stand there, looking at one another. The Sap’s head tilts up, briefly. You wonder if the Voice has spoken yet, or if she, like the rest of you, has been taken by surprise by all of this. 

“So, you’re the Nightwings,” he says. 

“Yes, and who are you?” Oralech asks. 

“My name is Volfred Sandalwood,” the Sap introduces himself, with a little bow. 

“Wait,” you say. “I’ve heard that name.”

“I haven’t,” Oralech says with a frown. 

“That’s not surprising,” Sandalwood says. “My Stamping Press was exposed a few months after your exile, Oralech. I managed to evade capture for some time afterwards, and so was on the litany of wanted criminals the town criers sang out every month for- well. I’m sure they’ve taken my name off now that they’ve captured me.”

You stare. So does Oralech. You’re pretty sure that the fake stars above you are staring too. 

“In the interest of full disclosure, that’s how I know about you,” Sandalwood says, turning to Oralech. “One of the last books I ever published was about you.”

“What.”

“Or, more accurately, about the travesty of your exile,” Sandalwood continues. “You were a hero, and you were punished for it. People made all the appropriate sounds in public, of course, but privately many were quite upset. My book spoke to that. There was quite a demand.”

“And what do you know about it?” Oralech asks. 

“I know that you distinguished yourself early in your career, not as the most obedient of soldiers or tractable of doctors, but as one who got results and had a relentless drive, and so were tolerated, even indulged. I know that at some point, probably quite early on, you became tired of it, but rather than simply retiring you stayed, and gathered enough influence to get certain high ranking members of the Commonwealth to agree to the peace talks. I presume during your time on the Bloodborder itself you similarly impressed the Harps. And then, when you were finally poised to begin all that work was kicked out from under you.”

Oralech blinks a bit. Then he smiles. “You’re leaving out the part where they told me I could return to the front, and I told them to shove it.”

Sandalwood smiles back. “Yes, insubordination was the official charge, wasn’t it? I’ll be sure to add that on in the event of future retellings.”

“So, since you know mine, can I ask what was your official charge?” Oralech asks. 

“Reading ,” you say confidently, at the same time as Sandalwood said “Insurrection.”

You turn to him. “You told me it was reading!”

“You asked if I’d been  _ branded _ for reading,” he says. “Which I was, eventually. I- think I can remember their being some kind of debate about it? Anyway, I had that Stamping Press in operation for two hundred years, and it was central to much of my insurrectionist activities, so the mark of literacy it was.” 

“What else where you doing?” you demand. 

Sandalwood thinks the question over for a long period of time. “I… have never killed anyone, and technically never committed any form of assault,” he says at last. “I also have neither deserted nor mutinied, though I would have had to have joined the army first for those to be possibilities. And I never personally attempted to marry anyone human. I do believe I’ve done everything else on the proscribed list.”

“So, insurrection, then,” Oralech says, nodding to himself.

“Yes,” Sandalwood agrees. 

In about three seconds you’re going to start laughing, and then you won’t be able to stop for several minutes at least. 

“Is there something we’re meant to be doing on this astral plane?” Sandalwood asks. 

“There should be a Voice that tells you more,” Oralech says.

Sandalwood frowns, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Is that why we’re being treated to the general ambiance of ‘Archjustice yelling’ right now?”

“What,” Oralech says again. 

“The Archjustice is yelling, and has been since we arrived here,” Sandalwood says. “Mostly profanity, though he did chant the word  _ no _ over and over again for a good minute towards the beginning.” He looks concerned. “Can neither of you hear that, really?”

“The Reader’s generally the only one who can hear the Voice,” Oralech explains. “Are you sure that’s the Archjustice?”

“He spoke at my sentencing,” Sandalwood says. “He has a very distinctive voice. He’s also now going on about the respect due to his office, which I’m going to take as confirmation.”

“You don’t, like, normally hear the Archjustice, do you?” You ask.

“No!” Sandalwood says, adding after a moment “Actually, one of the benefits of having spent the last decade of my life on the run is that I haven’t had to pay the slightest attention to all the pontificating coming from the High Court. I can’t say the idea of having to start again is a pleasant one.”

You’re pretty sure the Archjustice isn’t normally the Voice. If Brighton had had a direct line to the Archjustice, he would have never shut up about it. Also the Archjustice in office when you’d exiled had been a they, not a she, like the previous Voice had been for longer than you’ve been down here. 

This can only mean one thing: it’s time for you to start laughing. 

“What?” Both Sandalwood and Oralech ask as you double over. 

“We did it! We found the one guy!” You gasp out, clutching a stitch in your side with one hand and pointing at the Sap with the other. “We pulled one living person out of that shithole, and he’s the one person the Commonwealth hates more than us! The fucking  _ Archjustice _ stepped in to stop him from returning, and we’re fucked!”

You know you're right when Oralech doesn’t tell you off for swearing in what’s kind of supposed to be a Rite.

You manage to pull yourself upright, eventually. Oralech looks worried. Sandalwood has his face upturned, and looks like he’s smelled something rotten. 

“He does seem disinclined to share any useful information with me,” Sandalwood says, once you stop laughing. “More to the point, I’m not sure I could trust anything he told me.”

Oralech nods. “That seems like a reasonable assumption.”

They turn and look out across the field, empty of everything save the opposing pyre. 

“This is it?” Sandalwood says. “This is the way back?”

“Yes,” Oralech says. 

“You’ve done this before, the both of you?”

“I’ve seen seven exiles to freedom,” Oralech says. “Erisa was with me for the last three.”

“Then I’ll rely upon you to guide me,” Sandalwood says. “What is it we need do?”

“Can we do that?” you ask Oralech. You can’t imagine Brighton asking for help in understanding the Rites, but that might be more a Brighton thing than a Reader thing. 

It’s still hard to picture. The Reader guides the triumvirate, not the other way around.

“Well, let’s find out,” he replies. “Okay everyone: masks on.”

You slip your mask back on. Sandalwood fumbles with his, but manages it in the end. 

“You mentioned earlier that these raiments were protection,” he says. 

“Yes,” you say. There’s no sign of the celestial orb. 

“From what?”

The pyres are still there and burning, though. You point to the enemy one. “That.”

“The fire?”

“If this goes well, we’re going to be jumping into that in a minute,” Oralech says. “And you don’t have to trust me on that, one of us will jump in first.”

“I do trust you, as it happens,” Sandalwood says. “You’ve given me no reason to doubt your intentions, and quite a few to believe them.”

Oralech does a double take. “Well, that’s good,” he says after a moment. “But one of us will still go first so you can have some idea of how it goes.” He looks up. 

“Still no orb,” you say. None of you have any auras, either. 

“We’re not ready yet,” Oralech says. “You’re going to have to root yourself.”

Sandalwood points to the ground. “In this?”

“Yes.”

Half a second later, Sandalwood stares down at where his waist is embedded in the ground, and then back up to the two of you. “That was much more effective than I thought it would be.”

“Well, let’s hope your luck holds, because I’m no Reader and have no idea how to do this next part,” Oralech says. “You’re going to need the Book.”

You can feel, very suddenly, the weight of your copy of the book in your raiments. You pull it out. Sandalwood and Oralech do the same. 

“From the way you keep using the word, I gather the reading you want me to do is not of the conventional sort,” Sandalwood says. 

“What kind of reading is conventional?” you ask. 

“The kind where I speak aloud the words written on the page,” Sandalwood says. “Or perhaps, where we all pass around the book in question and take turns doing so.”

“No, neither of those,” Oralech says. “You’re the only one who can read the writing, which means you’re also the only one who can  _ Read _ for us. It’s… a kind of enchantment, I think? It binds us together, allows us to act as a single unit.”

“I had a friend,” Sandalwood says. “An alchemist by trade, primarily. I often assisted her in her experiments. That’s the extent of my experience with enchantments.”

“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t enchantment in the conventional sense of the word, at least,” Oralech says. He looks over at you. 

“I don’t know what you’re looking at me for,” you protest. “You’ve been doing this for at least twice as long as me, Doc.”

“Right,” Oralech says doubtfully. “Well. Erisa and are going to focus on our books.”

“Which you cannot read,” Sandalwood interrupts. 

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t need to read, you do. So we’re going to focus on our books, and you’re going to focus on yours. See if you can’t find us in there. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to-”

Sandalwood had opened his book while Oralech was still speaking. “Like that?” he asks. His voice sounds different. Not fully there. 

“Yes. Exactly,” Oralech confirms, also sounding a bit odd. “Now find Erisa.”

You concentrate very hard on the book: the heavy weight of it, the blank, black pages. And then, Sandalwood finds you. 

Brighton’s mind had been sharp, and kind of spiky. It wasn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it reminded you of carving up cactuses in the valley, or the prick of rain against your face as you flew over the Deathless Tempest, or picking berries from the bramble, or Ti’zo nipping at your ear, or hunting crabs over the sharp-toothed sands of the Black Basin. And then, sometimes, most of the time towards the end, it felt like a dagger poking you in the back. 

Sandalwood’s mind doesn’t feel anything like it. It’s not a sensation, so much as a place: a big, orderly one full of all kinds of things. 

Once, in the time you still think of as Before, you went into Sumgal with your father. Because it was Before, Enyo was still alive- was waiting for you both at home, keeping an eye on the workshop. You’d been excited. You’d never been to the city before, and everything was new and fascinating, from the bored woman who checked the identity charms on your bracelet and the seals of permission your father carried when arrived at the citadel gates to the wyrms sparring on the battlements. 

Your father had taken you to the Blacksmith’s Guildhall, and that’s what Sandalwood’s mind reminds you off. An old place, where even the door hinges were exquisitely crafted, where there were displays of starmetal and old pre-Empire artefacts and cold-forged blades from the old cur culture, and you’d run wild while your father negotiated for the metal needed to make Enyo his lance. 

...and now the memory’s gone sour. 

“You’ve found me, Sandalwood,” you say. Your voice echoes slightly.

“If we’re going to do this, then you may as well call me Volf-”

The celestial orb falls, and as it does, your auras finally manifest. Oralech breathes out a sigh of relief. You punch the air. “Yes! This is officially working!”

“I take it that’s the orb you mentioned earlier,” Sandalwood says. Or Volfred, you guess. Maybe Volf, if you decide to like him, or it annoys him to call him that.   

“Yes,” Oralech says. “It’s what we run into the opposing Pyre with. And we’re going to leave it alone for now.”

“We are?” you ask. 

“Yes, we are,” Oralech says resolutely. “Now these are called auras.” He steps closer to Volfred, their auras merging. “When we’re closer together, they grow. Like this they’re a kind of protection- enemies who run into them will be banished, and take some time to return. They can also be used as a kind of weapon. Erisa?”

You cast your aura across the arena. Oralech nods approvingly. “You’ll notice how it disappeared from beneath her for a time? That makes her vulnerable to attacks from opponents’ auras, so you’ll have to watch that carefully. Now, humans, demons and curs can all cast their auras like that- bog crones too, though they’re far more powerful. You, on the other hand, can’t so much cast an aura as you can generate another small aura some distance away.”

Volfred copies your motions, and a small sapling appears next to the celestial orb. 

“Yes, like that. That’s a good place for it, too- it’ll keep our opponents from being able to grab the orb right away. Now, wyrms trail their auras behind them, and they can sort of teleport to the end of their trail, banishing anyone caught in their path. Harps can charge at you- you’ll notice the warm up, but they’ll have a shield you can’t disrupt them while they do, so it’s best to just get out of the way. Imps implode, banishing themselves for a short while, and any opponents caught in the blast radius for a normal length of time.”

Volfred spends this speech staring at his sapling. 

“Don’t worry if you can’t keep it all straight, we have at least a couple of weeks before the Rites begin again,” Oralech says after a moment. 

Volfred makes a sound like he’s about to speak, but doesn’t actually say any words. He stares at his sapling for a while longer, and then turns to you. 

“There isn’t going to be a point where this makes sense, is there?” he asks. 

“Nope!” you reply. “But you kind of get used to that.”

“The Rites have their own internal logic, you just kind of... have to forget how reality works to see it,” Oralech says. “It’s like the military, that way.”

Every day in every way, you’re more and more glad that you missed the army part of growing up. 

“So. What else is there?” Volfred asks.

“Try running!” you suggest. 

Volfred makes to haul himself up out of the ground. 

“No, you’ve got to stay rooted during a Rite. Don’t ask me why,” Oralech says.

“You want me to run… while rooted,” Volfred says slowly. 

“Yes,” Oralech replies. “Just make sure you have a destination in mind when you do.”

Volfred looks between the two of you before he realizes that you’re still not joking. A second later he’s disappeared. A second after that, he pops out of the ground. He looks around for a moment, and then disappears again. 

Several blinks later he ends up next to Oralech again, close enough for their auras to overlap and expand. “This isn’t entirely precise. I presume that’s a trade off for the speed and the lack of ability to be harmed while underground?”

“That seems likely. There’s a balance to most of the abilities we posses during the Rites,” Oralech says. “Which are bloodless, by the way.”

“Then what’s the point of the whole,” Volfred throws out another sapling, and then flinches away from it. “That. The point of that.”

“Still weird?” You ask. 

“Try to imagine that you’ve suddenly discovered that not only you can manifest some kind of extension of yourself as a weapon, but that the weapon itself bears no small resemblance to a human fetus,” Volfred replies. 

“I will not do that, and you can’t make me!” you protest. “What the fuck.”

“Erisa, don’t curse in a Rite,” Oralech says wearily. 

“It’s totally permissible to swear in a practice Rite, when you learn that’s a fucking fetus!” You turn to Volfred. “Am I right?”

“This is supposed to be sacred, even if it is practice,” Oralech says, also turning to Volfred. 

“Am I supposed to mediate this debate?” Volfred asks. 

“You’re the Reader,” you both say. 

“If this is meant to be sacred, then I suppose we should try to refrain from further profanity,” he says after a moment. 

“Aw, man!”

“Though, in fairness to Erisa, the Archjustice did swear first and at considerable length,” he adds. 

“Did he say what the fuck?” you ask. 

Oralech smacks himself in the mask. 

“He did, actually, though I believe he was referring to me, not- not the sapling.” Volfred laughs. It sounds strained. 

“So, the Rites are bloodless,” Oralech continues gently, once Volfred stops laughing. “You can’t harm our opponents, nor they you so long as the Rite is being played out. You can be banished, which essentially means that you float around in another astral plane, I guess. It’s not permanent. You can get sick if you are banished too often in too short a period of time, but you will recover with rest, no lasting damage done.”

“I feel like I should let you both know that His Honor is currently going on at length about the tortures of expulsion,” Volfred says. “Do either of you know what that is?”

“Expulsion is what happens when you break the rules of the Rites so badly that the Scribes bar you from ever trying again,” Oralech says. “I’ve seen it happen, once. It doesn’t do anything to the person being expelled in and of itself, as far as I can tell, but… this is the only way out. Losing all hope  _ does _ do things to a person.”

“And that’s why we know that no one’s going to try anything during a Rite,” you say. “They’d lose their chance at freedom.”

Volfred nods slowly. “And outside of the Rites?”

“Some triumvirates are friendlier than others,” Oralech says. “We’ll go over them later. For now, there’s just one thing left: jumping.”

“Keep rooted?”

“Keep rooted,” Oralech says. 

Volfred leans forward, and then slightly back as his shield manifests. 

“That’ll reflect back any auras cast your way,” Oralech tells him. 

Volfred lets the shield fall, and then calls it up again, holding it steady. “You know, I really could have used this ability a month ago,” he says. “A fortnight, even, probably would have spared you considerable effort in amputation.” After a few seconds more, the shield fails as he runs out of the stamina needed to maintain it. 

“And if I could have banished every opponent who stepped into my interpersonal space, the War would be over,” Oralech says with a shrug. 

“And if I could have shot my dad with an aura, they still would have thrown me down here, sooooo,” you shrug. “Sucks to be me, I guess.” 

“None of this works outside of the Rites, I presume,” Volfred guesses. 

“Nope,” you reply. 

“Do either of you have any other abilities?” he asks. “Besides being able to- oh, Scribes!” He manifests yet another sapling as he tries to demonstrate aura casting, and recoils from it. “ _ Why _ ?”

“When we run and jump here, we actually run and jump,” Oralech says over your sniggering. 

“But, more,” you say. “Much more.”

Volfred nods. “Is there anything else?”

“Plenty,” Oralech says. “But that’s probably enough to start with, I think. Is the Voice still there?”

“Still there, and talking,” Volfred says. “He ordered some tea with honey a few moments ago. I think he intends to keep at it.”

“Are you going to be able to focus through that?” Oralech asks. 

“I was a university professor for over two hundred years,” Volfred says. 

You’re pretty sure that’s supposed to be a joke, but you don’t get it. “Which means?”

“It means that I’ve sat through over two hundred years worth of increasingly petty staff meetings,” Volfred says. “Believe me, I am completely capable of tuning out another pompous windbag’s self-aggrandizement to a captive audience.” 

“Do you still have a hold on us?” Oralech asks. 

Volfred’s hold has slipped a bit, which you only notice when it returns full force, and you’re suddenly a kid again with a room full of possibilities before her. 

One possibility: you can totally make it to the celestial orb in one leap.

“You can jump that far, Erisa?” Volfred asks. 

“Yep!” You’re already crouching down. “Want to see?”

He does, actually. You go flying through the air and scoop up the orb as you land. 

“You’ll notice that her aura’s gone now,” Oralech says as you take a bow. 

“So we’re our most vulnerable when we are in a position to… what is the point of this, besides our freedom?”

“Winning,” you say, at the same time Oralech says “Dowsing our opponent’s pyre.”

“Which is how we win,” you point out. “Anyway, before anyone can banish me, they have to catch me first.”

Volfred gets your hint, and off you go, taking a big running leap into the enemy pyre. Score one to the Nightwings!

It’s not a bad Rite, especially considering the fact that Volfred is new. And that he was kind of dying a couple days back. And that the Voice hates him. And that none of you knew that you were going to be doing this when you got up this morning. And that the sapling thing is apparently way more horrifying than you thought. 

Actually, you know what? It’s a good Rite. Volfred let through more Beyonders than Brighton would have, yes, but you still have a few weeks left before the next cycle starts. You can work the kinks out in the Beyonder Crystal. And if you lose a couple of the early Rites, then, well. You’re the Nightwings. You’ll go to Mount Alodiel in the end either way. 

And from the look of things, you won’t be going with anyone you hate, either. That’ll be a nice change.

Oralech seems to like him, at least. “For the Nightwings!” he cries, grabbing Volfred by the arm. You come up to his other side, and grab the other. 

“Oh must we?” He asks. 

“This is a sacred ceremony steeped in tradition and meaning. There’s stuff even I don’t skip and this is one of those things,” you tell him, as seriously as you can. 

You’re pretty sure that he sees right through you, but he doesn’t do anything but shake his arm free of Oralech for long enough to push the leaves back from his face. “Very well then. On the count of three?"

“OneTwoTHREE!” You chant out. All three of you raise your arms up to the creepy nonexistent sky and shout “FOR THE NIGHTWINGS!”

And then the arena dissolves, and you’re back in the blackwagon, with no time at all having passed. 

Volfred makes a grunting noise, grimaces, and then rubs at his throat. The Book snaps shut in his free hand. Now that you’ve seen him with all his leaves, he looks strange.  

“You’re back in the physical world which means you still have your physical injuries, idiot,” Oralech grumbles. 

“Give him a break, Doc,” you say. “I get the impression that Volfred is used to talking a lot.” You make the gabbing sign with your hands. “Right?” 

After a moment, Volfred smiles a little sheepishly, and makes the same gabbing sign for… a whole lot longer than you did. 

“Ha!” If he can take a joke this might actually be kind of fun. You owe Oralech a bit too much to feel comfortable poking at him too much, you can’t understand a single word Ti’zo says, and you’re not sure you’ve ever heard the Minstrel talk at all, which makes your options kind of limited.

You miss Savarti. She was only around for a few months after you joined the Nightwings, but she had been really fun to rile up. Reggis was always good for a laugh, whether you were teasing him, or he was teasing you, or you were ganging up on someone else. Brighton was fun to laugh  _ at _ , but only if you did it carefully, well out of earshot.   

“Well, if he wants to be able to talk again anytime soon,” Oralech says, even as he turns to Volfred. “Then he’s going have to be quiet for at least another week. Otherwise his vocal reeds are going to stay painfully unusable for the whole rest of the moon. Understand?”

Volfred holds up a hand as a peace offering, and then presses a finger to his lips, smiling innocently. 

Oralech is not impressed by this. He snorts. “Yeah, that’s probably the face you made at your arresting officer too.”

Even with his hand clapped over his mouth to stifle any noise that might come out, it’s obvious from the way the things-sticking-out-of-his-shoulders-you-don’t-know-the-name-for shake that he’s laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because as I was writing the third chapter of Fruits, I realized that Volfred's first attempt at Reading probably was a slightly-mitigated disaster, and I figured it would be good to write as a stand alone. 
> 
> (In case anyone is wondering what's going on with Fruits, I gave myself free reign to indulge all my worst fanfic writing habits for Chapter Three, and because I am a parody of myself, Chapter Three is now 25,000 words long with no end in sight.)
> 
> Seriously though, I'm not the only one who thought that when Manley threw out that first sapling, right?


End file.
